


From Dust

by AzulDemon



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:29:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzulDemon/pseuds/AzulDemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MacCready try's to make sense of the recent changes in his relationship with Landon (the Sole Survivor of Vault 111).  It's confusing and neither of them are sure how to proceed.  Words are one thing but MacCready is ready for things to go further.  He's fixing for a kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time I set out into the Common Wealth fully intending to peruse the lovely Piper Wright and then I met a mercinary with a heart of gold. That was when this fic was born. It's meant to flush out as much of the MacCready/Sole Survivor romance as possible and remain as true to cannon as possible. Plus, there isn't nearly enough MacCready/Male Sole Survivor love out there.
> 
> For now it's a self-contained story but it could become parter of a larger series...perhaps with a love triangle between Piper, Mac, and Landon...who knows!
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
> 
> Fallout and the characters within this fic do not belong to me. The credit is all Bethesda's. I'm just playing in the playground they've built.
> 
> Enjoy!

_"I...was hoping...what we have together could be more than friendship."_  
  
Those words…those words had hit MacCready like a fu—darn herd of stampeding Brahmin. They had literally been the last words MacCready had expected to hear out of Landon's mouth. What did that mean? How was this even supposed to work?  
  
_"I—I don't know. I mean, I never thought of us that way."_  
  
In retrospect, MacCready's response had been a terrible one and not wholly accurate either. It would have been more accurate to say he hadn't _allowed_ himself to think of their relationship that way. And why should he have? Landon had been married. Landon had loved— _still loved_ —his wife. He was a _guy_! Not that that was a problem...MacCready was definitely attracted to Landon, maybe he always had been but had only realized it when they had laid it all out. He didn't know. He had never really imagined himself being with another guy that way. This was uncharted territory, he was most definitely off the map.  
  
For a long time he had thought this part of him was dead, lying cold and alone with Lucy in the dank, dark warren of that abandoned metro station. He had never really expected to feel like this for someone else. He had been too afraid. To care about someone left you open for a knife in the back. It left you open to pain. In the world they lived in the odds of the people you cared about dying were high. This thing with Landon...the feelings he was having for him…it had all snuck up on him.  
  
He pulled at his rifle strap, hitching it higher on his shoulder as he walked. The sun was starting to sink lower in the sky and there was a murky, green haze filling the air. A few paces ahead of him Landon was playing fetch with Dogmeat, tossing a gnarled stick for the dog to bound after and return with wagging tail and excited growls. Landon would praise the dog with pats and complements. He would laugh that warm, low laugh that was like the first slow drag of a cigarette, like five drinks of bourbon swimming in your veins.

At that moment, as if sensing the weight of MacCready's eyes on him, Landon glanced over his shoulder after tossing the stick again and gave him a wide toothy grin. Teeth straight and white like almost no one in Common Wealth could afford. MacCready felt his heart swell at the sight, felt the corners of his mouth curl up into a gentle smile. As confusing as this all was, he wanted this, he wanted Landon. They would make this work.  
  
But things hadn't progressed much since their initial confessions. Things between them had gone on much the same as before. They still teased each other irreverently and mercilessly. They still made bets over who could get the most kills in a fight (even though MacCready’s caps were Landon’s and Landon’s were MacCready’s). They still sat in silence reading Gragnok comics.  
  
Or maybe that wasn't entirely true. Now they sat closer, knees or shoulders barely touching. Now they would hold one another's gaze longer than before. When MacCready would take first watch Landon would lay his head down on MacCready's shoulder and drift off to sleep. MacCready would randomly toss his arm over Landon's shoulders and leave it there until something forced them to part. But the other _things_ people did in a more-than-friends-relationship-thing, they didn't do. They still hadn't kissed. And boy did MacCready want that.  
  
But in the two weeks since their relationship had evolved they hadn't done that. It was like they were circling each other in slow cautious rings, gradually drawing their orbits in closer, each trying to work up the nerve to take the next step.  
  
MacCready felt bound and determined to be the one who took that next step. Landon had already been the brave one. Landon had been the one who had been bold enough to admit his feelings, the one who opened the door to them being something more than friends. MacCready was tired of taking more than he gave. He was bent on keeping things even between them. He wanted them to be equals. He wanted them to be true partners. Landon already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, MacCready didn't want him carrying the weight of their entire relationship as well.  
  
So MacCready was going to make the first move. He just had no clue how he was going to actually to do that. He had never been particularly suave. Most of his dalliances started with about two too many drinks followed by clumsy, liquor infused kisses, and lewd banter. Landon was different. He couldn’t do that with Landon. Landon wasn’t some random patron hanging out in a smoke chocked corner of the Third Rail. This was _Landon_! He was special…like Lucy.  
  
Just the thought of her name took him back almost ten years, to his final year in Little Lamplight. It swept him from the dry, cracked wasteland desert under an open, azure sky to the tender glow of lights strung overhead; blushing, amber orbs illuminating the cavernous gloom. It took him back to the sharp pull of his skin and the alien feeling of string and needle as it wove through the flesh of his shoulder. Lucy's hands had been steady and sure as she worked. She had used her teeth to cut the string, her breath hot and moist as it glided over his skin. She had dabbed at the gash with a soft, clean cloth and then slowly spread some kind of salve over it. Her fingers were soft, efficient, and gentle. The smell of antiseptic and soap that always hovered around her filled his nostrils. He had been lost in it all, in her touch, in her scent, in her nearness. Then, without thinking, he was floating toward her like a bloat fly to a corpse. He had pressed his lips to hers in an awkward collision of mouths and noses. He had felt the sharp shudder of her indrawn breath, her hands going stiff and still. Just as MacCready had thought he had gone too far. Just as he had been pulling back and working through a slew of apologies, her hands had moved, closing around his bicep and pulling him back to her. It had been clumsy and frantic. It had been prefect.

“Easy there MacCready,” a voice broke into his reveries, pulling him out of the undertow of his memory. “Wouldn’t want to go and blow a fuse now.”

“Huh?” MacCready managed, looking up just as Landon leaned in to bump their shoulders together, a wry grin on his lips.

“Shuddup…” he pulled the brim of his cap low over his brow as he felt the flush seeping up from his neck and into his ears.

Landon chuckled, keeping close so that their arms and knuckles would brush as they walked. “How’re you supposed to watch my back if you’re spacing out?”

“I wasn’t spacing.” MacCready Groused, bumping Landon back.

Landon’s grin widened, and he brought a thumb to sketch a slow, lazy trail in-between MacCready’s eyebrows. “Did you know you get a little line, riiiiight _here_ …when you’re spacing out?”

MacCready bit the inside of his mouth as the shudder slithered up his spine, crackling and prickling like a bolt of lightning has passed through him. There was a warmth that gathered low in his belly and left his stomach feeling upended. His breath caught in the back of his throat. It was insane that such a simple gesture could set him on fire. He cleared his throat loudly. He didn’t know how to handle these moments. He enjoyed the contact, he wanted more of it, but he didn’t know how to keep it going. Landon was better at this than he was. He was failing miserably at not leaving the weight of their relationship on Landon’s shoulders.

“What were you thinking about?” Landon asked amiably, apparently oblivious to the effect he had just had on him.

MacCready had been so focused on trying to figure out how to react to Landon’s display of affection that he answered honestly on reflex. “Lucy…”

“Oh…” Landon muttered, his bottom lip pressing up into his top lip and drifting a pace away from him.

MacCready felt a spasm of panic cascade through him. He had just screwed up. Landon had the wrong idea. He didn’t know what to say so he just ground his jaw and moved to close the sudden distance between them, bouncing into the other man inelegantly in his haste.

“No—it—uh—I was—uh—” _Thinking about my first kiss with my deceased wife in an attempt to figure out how to finally kiss you…yeah, not gonna go with that._

So instead he was silent and stubbornly maintained his proximity to the vault dweller. Landon didn’t say anything either and they continued on in a heavy silence, Dogmeat falling behind and then galloping ahead as tough impatient with their pace. That green haze MacCready had noted on the horizon was looking like it was building into a rainstorm of the irradiated variety. They were going to have to find some kind of legitimate cover soon if they didn’t want to be glowing with radiation sickness.

“So, what was she like?” Landon finally broke the silence, his hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “Lucy, I mean.”

MacCready looked over at him with only his eyes, uncertain of where this line of questioning was going. “She was…lovely…” He finally answered. “She had these grey-green eyes that were striking against her dark hair and skin. She had this _way_ with people. They just listened to her. She was like five feet nothing on the outside but 7 feet tall on the inside, you know?”

Landon nodded.

It was weird that talking about Lucy came so easy given his situation with Landon. But it just flowed out of him.

"She ran the clinic in Little Lamplight, she kept us all healthy and put together.”

“She was a medic too?” Landon asked, angling his head.

MacCready nodded. The parallel hitting him suddenly. It _was_ odd. The ways he and Landon lined up. Landon was a medic, like Lucy had been. Landon’s wife had died right in front of him while he was powerless to stop it, just like MacCready’s had. They both had a son who they felt like they had failed, who was in danger, who they were fighting to save.

_Two sides of the same coin_ …how had they managed to find each other? How had Landon hurtled through time to him? It was honestly more than a little bit eerie.

“She sounds like she was something.”

“Yeah, she really was. She was the only one who saw through my big-mayor-tough-guy act. She saw through it all and still loved me. We promised to find each other again when I left Little Lamplight. She was a year younger. So I held up in this place called Big Town. That’s when I started selling myself out as a hired gun. When the time came for Lucy to leave and we met in Big Town she was so excited to see me, so full of love and hope…I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I was nothing but a filthy merc…that the outside world had already tainted me. So that’s when I lied and told her I was a soldier.” He sighed and looked up at the sky. “Thinking about it…I bet she knew…she could always see right through me…I was just too stupid to notice and realize that she loved me no matter what.”

Oddly enough the pain didn’t feel as raw as it usually did. It was still there, but it was…duller…or…something. He had kept all of this coiled so tight within himself that maybe it had never had the chance to actually heal. Talking about it had changed all that. Was that why Landon asked? Was he _that_ insightful? Did he need that too? Nora’s death was definitely more recent and he didn’t talk about her much either.

“How about Nora?” He found himself asking before he could think better of it. “What was she like?”

Dogmeat had started growling with hackles raised and teeth bared. Without breaking his stride MacCready unslung his rifle and peered down the scope taking in the sight of the two raiders down the road. He paused, lined up the shot, held his breath, squeezed the trigger, and watched as the head of one of the raider’s exploded in a crimson shower of gore.

“She was…” Landon was saying. “She was incredible. She was my world—my anchor…” He pulled out his laser pistol as the second raider rushed them, his V.A.T.S. system picking out the raider’s weak points with its biometric scanner. “God she was smart, she was a lawyer—someone who interpreted and studied old world laws and acted as a guide to the legal system.” He clarified.

He squeezed the trigger and a red bolt of light streaked from the nozzle and hit the raider square in the chest, instantly incinerating the man and reducing him to a pile of simmering, glowing ash. Landon holstered his gun and continued onward.

“She had this unwavering faith in me that I never felt I really deserved...”

“I know the feeling,” MacCready said, slipping his rifle back over his shoulder. He kicked a rusted can away and off into the brush. For once Landon didn’t chastise him and pluck up the piece of junk and stuff it in his pack to use for some project later.

“She was funny,” Landon chuckled softly. “Or at least _I_ thought she was. She would tell these jokes—they were really terrible actually—like: what do you call a group disorganized cats?”

MacCready lifted his shoulders to his ears and dropped them back down helplessly.

“A cat-astrophe!” Landon’s laugh amplified, rolling up from his belly.

MacCredy smiled, not at the joke, but at the warmth it ignited in his partner.

Landon knelt down and poked through the ashes of the scorched raider, plucking out some ammo and caps. “She hadn’t been sure about being a mother. But she was great at it, took to it like a fish to water. We were both scared shitless when Shaun was born. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing but it was easier because she was there with me.”

MacCready knelt to the raider that he had taken out and rifled through their cloths retrieving some more ammo and caps and even some purified water and silver pocket watch. “I never felt ready to be a dad either. But having Lucy in it with me really made me believe that I could actually do it—actually be good at it.”

Landon laughed. “God, what did they ever see in us?”

“Dunno,” MacCready answered, glancing over furtively. “Maybe, what we see in each other…” He felt his face scorch as the words left his lips. It was the most intimate thing he had said since that day at Home Plate.

Landon looked over at him and just stared. MacCready kept his eyes carefully trained upon the ground.

“Yeah…yeah, I guess you’re right.” Landon finally said.

This was definitely weird. Two guys who had just become something more than friends talking about the wives they had loved and tragically lost. This probably wasn’t how you were supposed to do this. They had to be breaking some kind of relationship rule or something. But here they were. Maybe it didn't matter. The two of them never seemed to do anything the traditional way.

“Um, there’s a gas station over there.” Landon muttered, indicating the building with a nod of his chin. “We can hold up in there for the night. Keep us out of that rain…don’t want to end up growing any extra limbs.”

MacCready nodded and followed. The gas station was empty with the exception of a few angsty rad roaches that met their ends at the bottom of their boots. MacCready started a cook fire in the garage and started tossing razograin, carrots, and tato’s into the pot. Meanwhile, Landon went about setting up a perimeter with traps.

When he was done Landon walked in and squatted down on the balls of his feet across from him and watched him cook. MacCready bit at his upper lip. Something that Landon had said had stuck with him, gnawing at his brain within the confines of his skull. He was going to say something syrupy and stupid again.

“Hey, Landon…” He said, eyes still on soup, watching the ingredients swirl together as he stirred.

“Hmm?”

“Listen—uh,” it was like his voice was coming from somewhere far away and his tongue was made from lead, “I’m not trying to replace Nora or anything—erm—God I’m terrible at this shi—gah, _stuff_ —it’s just—when we find Shaun…I just want you to know that I’ll be here—you know? I wasn’t exactly the best dad but—um…I’ll be here…with you…” He glanced up with his eyes.

The smile that Landon gave him was massive and his hazel eyes shimmered, catching the fire light in watery globes. “Thank you…” his voice was tight and serrated and he wiped at his eyes with the back of his wrist furiously. “Shit, Mac…thank you.” He cleared his throat. “And when all this is over and you get Duncan back…I’ll be here for you.” His hand gripped MacCready’s shoulder. “It’d be great for Shaun to have a brother.”

And that…the implications of _those_ words. “Yeah,” was all MacCready could manage In return.

He turned his attention back to the soup. It was ready and he started spooning each of them a bowl, handing one to Landon. Landon brought the bowl up to his mouth and blew over the steaming liquid, eyes holding MacCready’s as he took a sip.

“Delicious, what the hell did I eat before I met you?” Landon grinned before gulping down another serving.

“Oh, you just got radded up with cans of cram, instamash, and sugar bombs.” MacCready quipped. “The only stuff aside from ghouls as old as you.”

Landon snorted into his bowl. “Lucky me then.”

“Damn right.”

They had put out the fire and cleaned up from dinner and were laying out their bedrolls when Landon cleared his throat behind him. MacCready stood up and turned, almost colliding chest to chest with the other man.

“I…got something for you.” Landon mumbled, his hand rubbing vigorously at the back of his neck.

MacCready was struck by how cute he looked at that moment, nervous and uncertain, it was so unlike him. He realized that this might be a good moment to initiate contact and he stepped in closer. “So, what is it boss? Cigarettes? Bottle of rum? Or maybe some sweet new sidearm?”

Landon shook his head, eyes still down at their feet. “No, uh…it’s uh…”

MacCready frowned, not quite sure he had ever seen Landon like this.

“Here.” Landon said abruptly, holding up a length of chain pinched between his thumb and index finger.

The chain was made from the multiple types of metal links, like several different chains had been collected and spliced together to give it length. Suspended from it were two rings. MacCready absently reached out and took them between his fingers. They were simple golden bands, the metal was cool and smooth to the touch. The light from the oil lamps reflected off of them bringing his attention to the inside of the rings which read: _Love, honor and cherish_. His eyes snapped up. Wedding rings. These were _wedding_ rings! Landon and _Nora’s_ wedding rings. He hadn’t noticed Landon had stopped wearing his ring. When had that happened?

“You gave me something that meant a lot to you.” Landon’s voice was ragged. He tapped lightly at his front pocket where the toy soldier resided. “Something special from your life before.” He brought both hands to the chain and widened it, slipping it over MacCready’s head while he was still trapped in stunned silence. The rings clanked faintly as they came down atop his chest.

MacCready’s heart was hammering in his ears and his breathing was coming in short, shallow puffs. This was huge. He didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say. Up until now he had never seen Landon take off his ring and he kept Nora’s ring on him at all times. Landon was giving him everything. It was like he was literally taking off a piece of himself and giving it to him. MacCready swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.

Landon skimmed a hand tenderly over the top of MacCready’s shirt. His fingers coiled around the rings, nestling them into his palm. He glanced up from under his lashes and met MacCready’s eyes and whispered: “You’re my future Mac.”

MacCready brought his hand up over Landon’s and gripped it fiercely. Something inside of him cracked then. He felt hungry and deprived. In that instant he _needed_ Landon. He needed him like nothing he could ever remember needing before. His other hand shot up and cupped the back of Landon’s neck roughly and pulled him in, smashing their lips together in a frenzied kiss. The stubble that shadowed Landon’s jaw raked across his skin, it felt strange, but it wasn’t at all unpleasant.

He had expected the vault dweller to freeze or pull back, but he didn’t. Landon responded immediately, free hand going to the small of MacCready’s back and pulling him in even closer, crushing their clasped hands between their chests. Landon’s lips parted slightly and slanted against MacCready’s. The kiss wasn’t tender or cautious like MacCready had imagined their first kiss would be, it was all desperation and greed. MacCready’s fingers carded into Landon’s hair, tightening and curling in the thick, soft strands as Landon’s hand fisted into MacCready’s shirt.

For so long he had felt hollow and faulty, hiding behind bitter wit and feigned bravado, pretending like something wasn’t broken inside. Landon had seen through all that. Landon had been doing it too, using a mask of charm and humor. They were the same. They understood each other in a way that others couldn’t. They were both cut open and raw to the world. And now it was like those broken parts of them were coming together, mending, making them whole once again. Every place their bodies touched was a soothing balm being spread over their mutual pain and loss.

MacCready’s mouth opened up on a moan that he couldn’t suppress and Landon’s tongue slipped into his mouth sliding against his own, hot and slick. MacCready’s hips bucked involuntarily in response and he slid his own tongue against Landon’s. The other man laughed into their kiss, biting at MacCready’s lip softly before grinding his own hips in answer.

There was so much. It all filled MacCready until he was brimming and felt like he would explode. There was so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to say but that would require stopping—putting distance between them—and there was no way he was going to allow that. He never wanted this to end.

But end it did. It ended with Landon pulling away, panting raggedly and pressing their foreheads together. For a long time they said nothing, they just breathed one another in. MacCready could smell oil, sweat, and leather and something that was all Landon…something earthy and musky like, freshly tilled earth and clean rain.

MacCready gradually released his grip on Landon’s hand; the hand that Landon still clutched the rings in. He brought both hands to Landon’s face, tracing his jaw, caressing his ears, messaging the hair at his temples. Landon closed his eyes and leaned into his touch like a cat starved for attention. How had it been so hard to touch him? Why had he waited so long?

Landon released his grasp on the rings to place his hands on MacCready’s hips, gripping him tight. One of his thumbs slipped under MacCready’s shirt and began rubbing slow, maddening circles against the jut of his hip bone.

“I love you so bad Robert Joseph MacCready.”

MacCready angled his head and gave him a gentle, lingering kiss. His lips ghosted across Landon’s as he pleaded. “Say it again.”

Landon breathed out a laugh. “I love you.”

“Yeah…yeah, me too.” MacCready replied. “I love you too…love you way too fucking much.”

And then Landon was kissing him again, arms snaking around his back and pulling MacCready in. MacCready wrapped his arms around Landon's neck and melted into the kiss. He couldn't get enough of it. He felt complete, felt light. He felt happy. For the first time in his life he was unashamedly, unreservedly happy. The cure was on the way to Duncan. They would find Shaun and make those Institute bastards pay for taking him and killing Nora. And then...then they would figure out what to do next...together. They would build something good from the dust of their past.

MacCready wondered if Lucy and Nora were up there somewhere. He didn't know what he believed about death and what came after, but if they were up there he hoped that they were at peace. He hoped that they forgave them. He hoped that they were looking down and giving their idiot husbands their blessings.


End file.
